Читать книгу Her Christmas Prince - Catherine Mann - Страница 18

She was a virgin?

How in the name of all that was holy could she be inexperienced?

Nicolas’s mind raced back over everything he knew about Alandra. All the times he’d been with her, spoken with her, observed her from across a room without her knowledge. Nothing in her demeanor so much as hinted that she was an innocent.

And what about the scandal she’d been involved in back in the States? His mother had been only too pleased to share the details of Alandra’s indiscretion—a love affair with a married man.

A love affair with a married man that had left her a virgin? Nicolas could feel his brow furrowing, the skin of his face tightening as he continued to study her. And all the while he was powerfully aware of their physical connection, of the fact that he still ached and throbbed inside of her.

“How can you be a virgin?” he demanded, his tone brittle and more accusing than he’d intended.

Alandra’s eyes grew wider, but passion still filled them. “Forget about my virginity and finish what you started.”

To drive home her point, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her hips just enough to send lightning bolts of sensation through his rigid length. He sucked in a harsh breath, using every ounce of willpower he possessed not to start moving, and thrust himself to a glorious but premature end.

His nostrils flared as he took several measured breaths, counting to ten, then twenty. When he could finally speak without groaning or sweating too profusely, he said, “I’m all for carrying on, but as soon as we’re done, I will want to talk about this.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I fully expect you to make my first time memorable, though.”

A grin flashed across his face and the mood in the room instantly shifted to a less intense level. There must be traces of royal blood somewhere in Alandra’s ancestry. She had the imperial air down pat.

“Oh, darling,” he murmured, leaning in to cover her mouth with his, “you can rely on it.”

He occupied her with kisses and featherlight touches on her breasts and abdomen. And at the same time, he began to move his hips, slowly and carefully.

By now, her body had adjusted to his size and invasion. Her muscles were relaxed, warm and silky smooth with arousal.

He used long, gentle strokes to start, not wanting to do anything that would hurt or startle her. He hadn’t been with a virgin since he himself had been one, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to act. How fast might be too fast. How much might be too much.

But Alandra seemed far from intimidated. Her arms and legs were in constant motion, shamelessly exploring his naked body. And she wiggled beneath him, making it difficult for him to hold on to his resolve.

He locked his jaw and concentrated on breathing. His body was alive with sensation, his nerve endings electrified with need and lust and desperation.

“Can’t you move any faster?” she panted at last, her back arching and nails raking his damp flesh.

He raised his head to look down at her. Her face was flushed, her hair spread out in a gleaming mass on the pale satin sheets.

“Is that an order?” he retorted, torn between amusement and disbelief.

Her lips curved slightly. “A request. You’re treating me like I’m made of glass,” she told him, “and I most certainly am not. I may be inexperienced at this sort of thing, but I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admitted.

She lifted up from the mattress long enough to give him a quick, hard kiss. “You won’t. I can take whatever you have to give and then some.”

There was only one way to respond. “My pleasure.”

His tongue flicked out to tease a ripe pink nipple, and he was smugly satisfied to feel a shudder ripple through her long, lithe form. He kept at it, wetting both tips, suckling them into stiff, rigid peaks.

When he had her shivering in his arms, grasping at his hair and whispering his name, he began to scoot her back, sliding her naked, pliant body across the silky coverlet. Then he grasped her hips and rolled, bringing her over him while he lay flat on his back.

“They say a woman is responsible for her own pleasure. Show me what you want.”

Alandra stared down at him, her heart fluttering as she went from being startled by the sudden change of position to feeling empowered by his sensual declaration. His low voice rumbled through her, bringing goose bumps out along her flesh, and he held her hips when she straddled him.

A dozen sultry images of being in the lead and having Nicolas at her mercy played through her mind, and she loved every one.

Spreading her fingers, she pressed her palms on his chest and leaned forward. Her hair fell around her shoulders, the ends tickling his skin. She saw his impressive pectoral muscles jerk, and felt him swell inside of her.

Biting back a grin, she brushed her lips across the line of his jaw. “This is nice,” she murmured, kissing her way to his ear. “Having you beneath me, defenseless.”

His fingers flexed where he gripped her. “I only hope I have the strength to withstand your torture.”

“So do I.”

Taking the soft lobe of his ear between her teeth, she tugged gently. At the same time, she rose up on her knees, just an inch, then slowly lowered herself back down. Nicolas groaned deep in his throat, and heat burst in her center.

“Do you know what I really want?” she asked, watching her breath flutter the strands of his brown hair.

“What?” The word came out harsh and strangled as he tried to hold back his base desires.

“I want you to touch me. Everywhere. I love the feel of your hands on my body.”

Immediately, he began to explore. His palms drifted to her buttocks, where he gave a little squeeze before sweeping back up the length of her torso to her breasts. Again his thumbs wreaked havoc with her nipples, and with a moan of her own, she kissed him.

Sensations swamped her, raising her blood pressure and making her insides vibrate like the strings of a well-played violin. As good as she’d always thought sex might be, she’d never expected it could be this good. That a man—any man—could make her feel both hot and cold at the same time. Make her pant and purr, shiver and shake.

Instinct kicked in and she began to move, her body seeming to have a mind of its own. Her hips canted back and forth, and she rose and fell on his rigid length.

He filled her completely, pressing deep and rubbing with a glorious friction along her hidden folds. Pleasure wound inside her like a spring, from her lips all the way to the apex of her thighs, growing tighter and tighter as the two of them picked up speed.

Feeling as though she were about to explode, she sat up, gasping for air. Her eyes drifted shut and she dragged her nails across his chest.

Beneath her, Nicolas seemed possessed of the same frantic need to plunge and writhe and buck to completion. He met her thrust for thrust, pounding into her on every downward slide. And when that coil of delicious tension building up inside her finally sprang loose, he was right there with her, gripping her even harder and giving a guttural shout of completion.

Alandra’s own body shook with climax, rocking her to her very soul before melting into a pile of boneless limbs and damp, exhausted flesh on top of him. His arms slipped around her waist, and where her head rested on his chest, she could hear his heart thudding beneath her ear.

Her last thought before slipping into sleep was that she was glad she’d waited all these years to be with a man. And that when she’d finally taken the plunge, she was glad that man had been Nicolas.

“Now tell me how it is that you got to the age of twenty-nine with your virginity intact,” Nicolas demanded.

It was late, the sky darker than before. They were lying in bed, half-asleep after another bout of strenuous, passionate lovemaking.

He’d protested that twice in one night was too much for her, that she would be sore in the morning. But she was having none of it, and had proceeded to convince him otherwise.

Now that she knew the pleasures that awaited her, she had no intention of sleeping the night away. In fact, she was already anticipating the third time being especially charming.

At the moment, however, she was content to lie in his arms, blissfully sated and tucked between cool satin sheets.

“Don’t you think my high moral fiber is reason enough?” she replied sleepily.

“It might be, if you weren’t more beautiful than a supermodel, and hadn’t recently been accused quite publicly of having an affair with a married man.”

With a sigh, she pushed herself up on one arm, using her other hand to press the sheet to her breasts. If he wasn’t going to let the topic go, she might as well tell him everything and get it over with.

“For the record, it wasn’t an affair. Except perhaps in Blake’s mind. Blake Winters,” she clarified. “That was his name. I met him almost two years ago at a fund-raising event. He’s charming and good-looking, and I admit I was attracted to him. He started calling, sending flowers and gifts. We went out a few times, and he was nice enough, but I didn’t think we hit it off quite as well as he apparently did. And I didn’t know he was married and had a family,” she stressed, finally finding the courage to meet Nicolas’s gaze.

“Even after I decided not to see him anymore, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept calling, kept sending presents. He attended my functions and did his best to get me alone. Just about the time his attention started to border on frightening, he stopped trying to contact me.”

She shifted uncomfortably, readjusting the sheet around her torso as she went back to looking anywhere but into Nicolas’s eyes. “I thought that was the end of it, and then suddenly photographs of the two of us showed up in the press. They were probably taken at the charity events, but they were just suggestive enough to get tongues wagging—especially when a so-called ‘source’ leaked the information that we had been intimately involved. I think it was Blake himself. I think he wanted people to believe we were having an affair, maybe even thought, in some sick way, that it would make me go back to him.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath, shrugging off the bad memories and any lingering remnants of the shame she’d felt when the story—however incorrect—had broken.

The hair on her nape rose when Nicolas reached out to run the back of his hand over her bare arm. His knuckles rasped along her skin, drawing gooseflesh everywhere he touched.

“Poor Alandra, working so hard to take care of everyone else, but having no one stand up for you when you most needed it.”

His words, as well as his tone, surprised her, and for a moment she let herself believe them. A second later, though, self-pity transformed into her usual streak of independence, and she gave an unladylike snort.

“I had plenty of people to defend me,” she told him. “Unfortunately, my family is no match for all of Texas high society. In situations like that, the only thing you can do is lie low and try not to do anything even more newsworthy until it all blows over.”

His hand moved from her arm to her back. The light stroking lulled her and made her want to curl up beside him once again.

“Is that what you’re doing here, in Glendovia?” Nicolas asked softly. “Lying low?”

She snuggled down again, draping herself cozily along his hard length. Resting her head on the curve of his shoulder, she asked, “Is this low enough for you?”

He gave a chuckle, then shifted slightly and pulled her tighter against him, readjusting the cool sheets so that they were both covered from the waist down.

Silence surrounded them, heavy but comfortable. It gave her the chance to listen to Nicolas’s breathing and the sound of his heart pumping rhythmically beneath her ear.

“That explains the scandal that surrounds you back in the States,” he said at last, his fingers drawing random circles on her upper body. “It doesn’t, however, tell me how you managed to remain untouched for so long.”

Her mouth twisted wryly, even though she knew he couldn’t see her expression. “I’m a good girl. What do you think?”

“I think you’re a very good girl,” he murmured, his words edged with innuendo. “But no one who looks at you would ever believe you were a virgin.”

She cocked her head back to glower at him. “Why? Because I forgot to wear my sweater with the big red V on the front?”

“No,” he responded calmly. “Because you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, and sexuality trickles from your every pore. No heterosexual man could be in the same room with you without wanting you, and I find it hard to believe that one hadn’t convinced you to sleep with him before now.”

Sighing, she relaxed and settled back against Nicolas. “I don’t know how to explain it, except to say that no man has truly enticed me enough. I’ve dated a lot of men, yes. Wealthy, attractive men. And there were a few times I came close, a few I thought I might be falling in love with. But something always stopped me.”

“Until now.”

Beneath her ear, his heart seemed to jump against his rib cage and double its beat. Her eyelids, already half-closed, drifted all the way shut, his pulse acting like a lullaby.

“Until now,” she agreed, her voice growing faint as sleep began to tug at her. “I guess you could say that your invitation came at a very beneficial time. For a number of reasons.”

“One of those reasons being that it gave me a chance to finally get you exactly where I wanted you.” With one sinewy arm around her waist, he dragged her up so he could see her face, jarring her into full wakefulness.

Alandra wanted to argue the point or chastise herself for falling so effortlessly into his trap. But right now, in the darkest part of the night, with him lying warm and solid beneath her, she couldn’t find it in her to be angry.

Later, maybe, but not now.